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I spent the day there, and felt the better for it, building sand castles for Junior on the beach, and later talking idly with Mary Lou as she knitted on the veranda of the cottage. But it seemed strange, as I drove myself home that night, to think that life was going on much as usual. There was a dance at the Shore Club that night, and from the house I could see the colored lights around the pool, and even imagine I heard the band.

People dancing, or gathering in the bar, the women dressed in bright clothes, the men in conventional black and white.

“Hear they found that woman’s body.”

“Yes. Queer story, isn’t it?”

Life going on, and Arthur in that shabby office at the police station, sitting in a hard chair and confronting Bullard, like a red-faced bulldog, across the desk. The sheriff was there, and the local police chief, as well as two or three detectives. But it was Bullard who did the talking; looking pompous and grim. It went on, I learned later, for hours, as if they meant to wear him down, or to trap him.

“You say you never saw her that night. What explanation did she give for not keeping the appointment?”

“None. I didn’t see her. She stayed in her room. I began to wonder if she had found the note.”

“How did you give it to her?”

“I’ve already explained that. I couldn’t get near her, so I slipped it under her door.”

Coloring unhappily, but keeping his head up. “I was convinced that she knew something. My first wife—Mrs. Ransom—often talked to her maid, whoever it might be. As a matter of fact”—he hesitated—“I was aware that during our life together she frequently received mail addressed to her personal maid.”

“Letters from men?”

“Some of them. I found one or two she had overlooked after she left me.”

“Then, if I get your meaning, you thought that this woman, Helen Jordan, might know of some man who had reason for making an attack on Mrs. Ransom?”

“That was my idea. I wasn’t sure, of course.”

“That night you waited on the bay path and she did not come—did you see anybody, Mr. Lloyd?”

“No, I believe it was bank night at the movies.”

“How long did you wait?”

“From eight to almost ten.”

“And she did not come?”

“No.”

Bullard with the note in his hand, glaring across the desk; and Arthur still quiet, still composed.

“What did you mean by what you say here? About her possible need of money?”

“I should think that explains itself. She was no longer employed, and she had been sick. After all, Mrs. Ransom had brought her to my sister’s house. I felt I ought at least to see that she got back to New York, and be looked after until she got another position.”

“Very kind of you,” said Bullard. “It’s unfortunate she didn’t see things that way. She told the sheriff once that she wasn’t safe in your house. What did that mean?”

“I have no idea,” he told them. “Unless she referred to one or possibly more attempts to break into the place. I didn’t think she knew about them. She may have, of course. Or,” he added, “she may have heard from the servants that the house is queer.” He smiled faintly. “Something went wrong with the bells some time ago, and they claim it is haunted.”

But he had no alibi whatever for the night of her disappearance. He said he had driven aimlessly about through the hills, and so far as he knew had not been seen. He had not stopped for gasoline. He had not stopped anywhere.

They were not inhumane. At some time during the evening someone sent across the street for some coffee, and he drank it. But as time went on even the sheriff looked grave. Somebody asked him if he carried a pocketknife, and he produced it. It was sharp, and one of the detectives tried it on the rope; that rope which had been around Jordan’s neck. Arthur watched, pale with fatigue, and Bullard’s eyes full of hard suspicion.

“It does it, eh?”

“Does it, all right.”

But they did not arrest him that night. They knew as well as he did the weakness of the case against him. He could run a motorboat, of course. They had seen him doing it for years. But he knew the sea, and so did they.

“Why should I have killed her?” he demanded. “If she had had any knowledge dangerous to me, is it reasonable to think that I would have given her all that time to disclose it? As it stands, I never spoke to her. I didn’t even know her name until my sister told me.” And he added: “Suppose I had killed her and wanted to dispose of the body. Would anybody but a lunatic—somebody who didn’t know the currents here—have put that body into the water without a weight tied to it?”

“There might have been a weight, at that,” said Bullard.

But Arthur looked at the rope and smiled.

“There’s no knot in it,” he said.

They could understand that sort of talk, the local men at least. More or less they all knew the sea and its way in such matters. And there was Arthur, straight and handsome, facing them with a half-smile and clear direct eyes.

“Whoever towed that body out and cut it loose didn’t know much about the tides around here,” he said, and sat quiet.

Strange, all of it, it must have been: the shabby room filled with drama, the reporters on the street smoking and grumbling, that body forever still in the mortuary, and at the club people dancing or sitting out under the stars.

“Hear they found that woman’s body.”

“Yes. Queer story, isn’t it?”

Except for what Arthur had told me, I knew nothing of all this that night. I did know that with the discovery of the body we would be deluged again with reporters, and so I had the gates closed and locked after Arthur left and put Mike on guard there, with orders to keep everybody out.

Arthur had left at six o’clock, and I had hoped that he would get back for dinner. But he did not come, so I ate alone, with a depressed William moving in and out of the shadows.

“The soufflé is spoiled, miss. Lizzie says she can send in some fruit.”

“I’m not hungry, William. Have you heard anything?”

“Nothing, miss. Not since this morning.”

It was still faintly twilight when I finished, and calling Chu-Chu went out into the garden. The sun had set in a blaze of rose and green, the tide was low and the gulls were feeding clamorously. The usual starfish and sea urchins littered the beach, and among them stalked those wretched crows. I was eying them with resentment when to my surprise a dark head lifted itself from the water, some distance out from the shore.

It was late for seals. I watched it curiously, and when it rose again nearer the land I saw that it was not a seal. It was a man; and a man who was fully at home in the water. Most of the time he swam under the surface, with hardly a ripple on top; but now and then he rose for air and looked toward me. When he came closer I saw that it was Allen Pell!

He was like an answer to prayer that night. I had missed him more than I cared to acknowledge, and I found my heart beating fast when I recognized him. I was even trembling when I made my way along the dock to the float, to find him still in the water, but smiling up at me.

“Sorry to be so informal,” he said. “D’you mind standing as if you were merely looking at the landscape? I’ve gone to the hell of a lot of trouble to pretend I’m an amphibian.”

He pulled himself up onto the float, and I saw that he wore only a pair of bathing trunks. But for all his smile, he was shivering and his lips were blue.

“Not up to my usual form, I’m afraid,” he said apologetically. “Listen, I’ve got to talk to you, and I can’t keep my teeth still. How about some brandy and a blanket? I’ll hang around here until you get them. I tried the drive,” he added, “but the gates were closed, and a gentleman with a shotgun seemed suspicious. So I went back to a boat I’ve hired and—”

“Good heavens! Has Mike got a shotgun?”

“It looked like one to me, lovely lady; and I’ve seen a lot of them in my time.”

I ran back to the house then, with Chu-Chu thinking it a game and yapping at my heels. Nevertheless I was gone longer than I had meant to be. I found Arthur’s flask, mercifully full, and a towel and a warm dressing gown; but with them under a blanket over my arm I met Maggie in the upper hall, and she stared at me.

“And where,” she said, “are you taking that, miss?”

“I’m going to sit outside, Maggie. It’s a lovely night.”

“Then I am going with you,” she said firmly. “You don’t go out of this house alone at night. Not with murder all around.”

It took both time and effort to get away from her, and I was fairly desperate when she followed me down the stairs and even out into the garden. The air was chilly, however, and at last she went grumbling back into the house. I was, I think, just in time. Allen Pell was having a fairly substantial chill when I reached him.

He shook like a man with ague for some time, and I was beginning to be frightened when at last the brandy and the warm dressing gown and blanket began to have their effect.

“Sorry,” he said. “Devil of a way to visit a lady, isn’t it?” And he added: “You’re a pretty fine girl, Marcia Lloyd. Blood tells, doesn’t it? I’d like to have known your mother.”

That upset me. I had a quick memory of the old peaceful days, with Arthur and myself on that very beach, and Mother in her garden in her wide sun hat, showing her delphiniums. Suddenly I felt that I was going to cry.

“Don’t,” I said, “or I’ll howl like a wolf.”

He reached over and put a cold hand on mine.

“Sorry again,” he said. “You’ve been pretty heroic so far. It won’t hurt you to cry. But for God’s sake don’t howl. I don’t want to be found here.”

When I was calmer he told me how and why he had come. He had been in the water for an hour, swimming far out to escape observation, and most of the way it had been against the tide.

“But I’m here,” he said, “and that was the general idea. Now, what about your brother? They can’t tie
this
on him, can they?”

“They’re trying to. He’s there now. At the police station.”

I told him how things stood. Indeed I told him all I knew, and he was very attentive. He sat with his arms hugging his knees, gazing out over the water and listening.

“Will they arrest him?” I asked. “Do you think they have a case?”

“God knows,” he said roughly. “There is this in his favor. They’ll hold off if they can. The sheriff’s a decent chap, and you’ve got to remember that the summer people can do no wrong. But I gather that this Bullard is a swine.” He stirred and faced me. “See here,” he said. “Look back a little, will you? Was Mrs. Ransom here any time since her divorce? Or—I’ll change that—any time in the last three years?”

“No. I saw her now and then, but only in town.”

There was a longish silence.

“These rooms of yours, what you call the hospital suite. You think she was looking for something there?”

“Somebody was, apparently.”

“Maybe you’ve got it wrong. Maybe she was hiding something.”

“I don’t know what it could have been. I’ve searched the place. So have the police.”

“Any loose floor boards? That hatchet looks like something of the sort, if she put it there.”

“The police have been over it. They’ve even lifted some of the floor. There was nothing.”

He made a gesture.

“Then that’s that,” he said, and lapsed into silence again.

It was no time for romance that night, with Arthur in trouble as he was. But it was a comfort to have him there, close at hand; even if he did look slightly absurd, rolled in blankets and clutching the flask.

“I wish you would tell me something,” I said. “How did you know Juliette? She doesn’t seem the sort of woman you would know, somehow.”

“Meaning the trailer?”

“Good heavens, what sort of snob do you think I am?” I asked indignantly. “Meaning you, yourself.”

He did not answer that. He drew a long breath.

“How does any fool of a man know any woman like that?” he said. “I met her and fell for her. That’s all. Too much,” he added bitterly.

But I persisted.

“Where was that? In New York?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters. Everything matters, just now. Do you have to be so mysterious? It’s rather silly, isn’t it?”

He looked at me soberly.

“No, my dear,” he said, “it is not silly. It’s just damned necessary. Someday I’ll tell you why, but not now. And if you are wondering why I’m interested, I’ll say this. Arthur Lloyd and I are brothers under the skin. He was lucky, though. He only married her.”

He did not elaborate on that. He got up and threw off the blanket.

“I’ll make it back all right,” he said, eying the beach. “The tide’s ready to slack.” But he did not go at once. “I forgot to tell you,” he said. “I’m working on that alibi of his at Clinton. Living the way I do, I get in touch with all sorts of people. They won’t talk to the police, but they’ll talk among themselves. I have a line on a man who is supposed to have said he saw him that morning, asleep on the bench. If I can locate him, it will help.”

He stood looking down at me for a minute, as if uncertain about something. Then he slid noiselessly into the water and remained there for a moment, holding to the edge of the float.

“Good night, Marcia Lloyd,” he said. “We’ll fight it out on this line if it takes all summer! Just remember that.”

I stood there awhile after he had gone. Then I gathered up the blanket, robe, and the flask. I felt lonely and depressed, as though something strong and vital had gone with him, as though I could not face the empty house again. When I turned back it was to see, far away along the curve of the bay the lights of the Shore Club, and it was strange to think that people were gathered there, dancing, moving about, talking.

“Hear they found that woman’s body.”

“Yes. Queer story, isn’t it?”

To my great relief, Arthur came back, after midnight. He looked exhausted, and I saw at once that he did not want to talk.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” he said. “Just now I’m all in. Go to bed like a good girl, and stop worrying.”

I did so. I did not expect to sleep, but eventually I did. And it was that night that Maggie chose, for the first time in years, to walk in her sleep.